Black Panther 1,592 Posted February 17, 2016 Share Posted February 17, 2016 Anyone looked into these? http://www.alwaysinreach.co.nz/ (Matt - potential advertiser?) Quote Link to post Share on other sites
khayyam 77 Posted February 18, 2016 Share Posted February 18, 2016 to save the next person the trouble of searching: about $600 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jon 360 Posted February 18, 2016 Share Posted February 18, 2016 Interesting Martin Vaughan that came over from Melboure for the M2O evening on Tuesday told me that this is what the ORCV is setting up to use If you want a tracker just for yourself then the satphone store in the US were doing spot trackers before Christmas and if you signed up for 3 years at $100us per year they gave you the tracker Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Black Panther 1,592 Posted February 18, 2016 Author Share Posted February 18, 2016 I really can't do SSB (I can't hear VHF, SSB is worse). I have used satphone the last few long trips and that is OK, but if this is significantly cheaper I'm interested. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Island Time 1,240 Posted February 18, 2016 Share Posted February 18, 2016 I don't think this does voice? One of the advantages of radio is that it is point to multi-point - ie you to anyone who can hear the broadcast. Of course this has many other advantages that radio does not have. Looks to me that this is very like an irridum Go with its comms Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Black Panther 1,592 Posted February 18, 2016 Author Share Posted February 18, 2016 That's how I read it , no voice, but a fraction of the cost. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MarkMT 68 Posted February 18, 2016 Share Posted February 18, 2016 We used these for tracking in the GT300 last year. They were supplied for the event as a safety requirement and checked by the safety officer each morning to make sure they were switched on (photo). We found they were a little sensitive to orientation - I think most duct-taped them to the boom. Ours actually failed on the last day, causing me a little anxiety as team manager on shore, since our guys were toward the back of the fleet and I had no way to know where they were. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
idlerboat 116 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 ...compared to using a standard iridium phone and running txt only....not much difference in cost.. Looks like a "yellow brick" with a different label ? You can buy cheap second hand phones now. Yes it is water proof....but you cant do direct to vox (land line). This may be important if needing to talk to older relatives in an emergency. Iridium Go has created a lot of disappointment...its internet speeds are slow (and are now stated as such) it is very much phone app based ... Have been running Go and a newer and older model standard iridium phone all side by side. Older iridium dosnt hold sats as well as the newer one. Go is very good at holding sat,, even in side beside clear hatch.. Older phone with external ant...best of the lot. Compression services are another way to go...these specialise in reducing data to 10% or less of the standard streaming, optimised for sat phones. Yep...the catch is they charge for the service...but if you are downloading grib files and emails your data can last up to 10 times more ...and at say $750 for a 12 month pre paid iridium....thats a lot.. Dosnt help with vox though.. These services run at about $250 for the hot spot unit...plus $250 for 12 months subscription. So 10 times the data at aprox twice the price. They also do clever stuff like hold and deliver...as well as partial sent is auto re sent but only the missing bits.. Much as I love my HF........ My favourite is that you can set up a grib file robot while you are travelling....and it will just happen.. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
marinheiro 352 Posted February 20, 2016 Share Posted February 20, 2016 IB, which model Iridium phones were you running? Are you saying the older one with external aerial worked better than the newer one with external aerial? I have an old 9500 with external aerial and am looking for feedback if that may be adequate for basic data comms. Thanks Quote Link to post Share on other sites
idlerboat 116 Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 sorry should have been clearer... Newer is isat 2.. No external..antenna Older is 9505 with standard external (not high performance antenna) I am sure that an isat 2 in a powered cradle with high performance external antenna would be excellent........ but you are looking at about three grand... The thing with iridium is that it passes you from sat to sat...Having it drop between a sat is a nuisance. Bouncing around in the fly bridge of a large sports fishing boat under way makes it hard to stay connected no matter what... A yacht on a constant heading seems easier.. All of the above is just my observations ....(through my work) Iridium is a LEO or low earth orbit system...and I think it has about 66 sats running at the moment. Was 77 ? originally ? The other systems use geo stationary sats so you need to know where they are in relation to you and point the ant at them. Both in direction and altitude angle. I havnt tried but have been told that that the geo sat systems like thuraya are not good in the south pacific due to the very low horizon angle.. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erice 732 Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erice 732 Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 Is there any place where inReach™ won’t work? Because of Iridium’s whole earth coverage, any limiting factors would be solely due to terrain or other conditions that prevent line of sight to the Iridium satellites. For example, if you’re in a deep slot canyon or an unusually narrow mountain pass, you may not have the direct line of sight to a satellite that’s needed. The inReach™ has been tested successfully under heavy forest cover, even triple canopy, but it is possible that in some locations the canopy may be dense enough to block line of sight. In these or other instances where line of sight is unavailable, you will know your message has not reached the satellite because you will not receive a message confirmation and the signal LED will flash red. In these situations, you should move to a more favourable location and try again. What is Iridium? Iridium is the world’s only satellite network with pole-to-pole global coverage and two-way communication capabilities that other satellite systems can’t match. http://www.alwaysinreach.co.nz/component/content/article?id=21:f-a-q The constellation consists of 66 active satellites in orbit, and additional spare satellites to serve in case of failure.[2] Satellites are in low Earth orbit at a height of approximately 485 mi (781 km) and inclination of 86.4°. Orbital velocity of the satellites is approximately 17,000 mph (27,000 km/h). Satellites communicate with neighboring satellites via Ka band inter-satellite links. Each satellite can have four inter-satellite links: two to neighbors fore and aft in the same orbital plane, and two to satellites in neighboring planes to either side. The satellites orbit from pole to pole with an orbit of roughly 100 minutes The constellation of 66 active satellites has 6 orbital planes spaced 30 degrees apart, with 11 satellites in each plane (not counting spares). The original concept was to have 77 satellites, which is where the name Iridium came from, being the element with the atomic number 77 and the satellites evoking the Bohr model image of electrons orbiting around the Earth as its nucleus. This reduced set of 6 planes is sufficient to cover the entire Earth's surface at every moment. Because of the shape of the Iridium satellites' reflective antennas, the satellites focus sunlight on a small area of the Earth's surface in an incidental manner. This results in an effect called Iridium flares, where the satellite momentarily appears as one of the brightest objects in the night sky and can even be seen during daylight.[3] At 16:56 UTC on February 10, 2009 Iridium 33 collided with the defunct Russian satellite Kosmos 2251.[21] This was the first time two intact satellites collided.[22] Iridium 33 was in active service when the accident took place but was one of the oldest satellites in the constellation, having been launched in 1997. The satellites collided at roughly 35,000 km/h (22,000 miles per hour)[23] Iridium moved one of its in-orbit spares, Iridium 91 (formerly known as Iridium 90) to replace the destroyed satellite,[24] completing the move on March 4, 2009. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
too_tall 15 Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 we have an Inreach Explorer Screen edition. You need the screen edition IMO - the phone connection is flaky at best, and it also is another thing to go wrong. If your phone was drowned, you would like to still have more or less full functionality. They are absolute pigs to actually send a message on - very, very poor user interface. They are good for 160 character text messages. You can have a full conversation with them, but remember to index your messages as they dont come in matching the order in which they were sent. Inreach need to modify the software and their website to allow message spanning - such as cell phones do - to allow much longer messages to be sent easily as opposed to a hard limit of 160 characters. Only concern is that should the unit fail, you would like to have a means of communicating to your family that your actually OK but your tracker has failed and not to panic. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
erice 732 Posted March 5, 2016 Share Posted March 5, 2016 cheap iridium phone http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/boats-marine/parts-accessories/radio-electronics/auction-1041895713.htm Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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